Senate The UK Politics discussion

You say the people have spoken but the question was whether to leave or stay in the EU. There was nothing there about membership of the EEA.

As I pointed out, Norway is not a member of the EU, yet is a member of the single market and customs union, enjoys freedom of movement and the jurisdiction of the court of justice. Along with Switzerland and Iceland, it's a member of the European Economic Area without being a member of the EU.

Even as a member of the EU, we didn't sign up to the single currency (thank god) or the schengen agreement. Interestingly, several non-EU members are signed up to schengen: Norway and Iceland (via the nordic passport union) and - separately - Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Unequivocally, it does mean losing representation in the EU Parliament and our seat in the Commission. Everything else is up for negotiation.

Leaving the EU does not necessitate cutting all ties with Europe, it simply means a renegotiation of which ties can be mutually agreed and, frankly, a deal involving de-facto membership of the EEA is inevitable, along with acceptance of EU trade law (still no bendy bananas, Daily Mail!)

The fact that Japanese car manufacturers have received enough reassurance to continue - and in one case increase - their investment in their UK manufacturing plants leads me to believe that single market & customs union membership is a forgone conclusion. There's no way we'd agree to compensate them for any duties etc levied on imports from here to Europe unless we were pretty certain there wouldn't be any and there's no way the Japanese would have maintained/increased investment without such assurance.

The sticking point will be freedom of movement, which is a condition of single market access. Switzerland has already fought and lost that battle but several EU members have their own concerns about unfettered economic migration, specifically of unskilled workers. When your minimum wage is 4 times the average wage in Lithuania, and when several southern European economies are on the brink of collapse, you have the potential for problems. This is a chink in the armour of the current polemical rhetoric from Europe that can be exploited. Seeing potential problems down the line for their own state, some members may be quietly pleased to see a precedent for 'buying' some control over unskilled migrants (it will certainly cost us one way or another).

It's pretty much a case of grab some popcorn, sit back and see who blinks.

edit:- bugger, this post is a bit redundant following Jedi Ben's. Ah well, it's good to have a bit of a rant.

Oh, that reminds me, I bet if there were a concession to change 'Snickers' back to 'Marathon' a fair proportion of the loony brigade would be appeased.

 

Alpha-Red

I do appreciate you're likely reading through all this going: Then how the hell was this referendum even done?

We're still trying to work out the answer too. The rest of the EU response to the entire undertaking could be summarised as: Cameron, what the ****?

It beggars belief that it could all be done so crappily.

 

Quite interesting to see Theresa May at the european council summit. The very awkward clip that's been all over the news is at the start, but I've just sat through over 8 minutes of people arriving and gathering - everyone looks relaxed and genial except May whose body language screams defensiveness and anxiety. There may have been cold shoulders towards her before this footage but here she just looks sooooo unapproachable.

 

Oh my, saw some of that footage on Last Leg - what a car crash.

I'm not great at working a room but neither am I PM!

 

Yeah, she's not good with people. I know she almost made a selling point of the fact that she never goes to any of the bars at Westminster and never joins any kind of committees/working groups etc. but ffs you need to be able to talk to other leaders at a conference; it's a pretty important part of being a leader.

In other news, there's a gem in the Daily Mash today: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/polit...brexit-is-now-a-religious-cult-20161222119379

 

I hope those human sacrifices mentioned are done wickerman style

 

Na na naaa na, hey hey hey, goodbye!

 

I always got Tristram Hunt and Zac Goldsmith confused.

 

I think Tristram Hunt was confused as to which party he was in. Wasn't he once touted as the heir to Blair by some champaign socialist on Question Time?

I'm quite enjoying this slow trickle of blue Labour out of the party. Hopefully the rest of the Blairites will be inspired to **** off too.

 

And we're off - hey, wait, no one said we'd leave the Single Market:



Lying bastard liar!

Luckily for May-hem no one pays attention to what political parties call themselves anymore or else the Conservatives are going to have problems selling themselves as that after Brexit.

And the wish list? Pie in the ****in' sky.

May and co sell themselves as being in the 'real world', really? I don't think so.

 

Wasn't it explained at all to the public that the basic bargain behind EU membership is "open borders in exchange for access to single market"? How can anyone still be getting away with this sort of fib?

 

No. See the above image for proof of how they indeed did get away with it and probably still will by blaming all the crap that'll result on other people.

 

So who else has been googling how to best migrate to the mainland?

 

"I am glad they are getting rid of Obamacare. Me? Oh my plan is through the ACA."

People are idiots. Uneducated fools with access to information they have neither the education or capacity to process.

 

Well even a second-grader would be able to process the idea that ACA = Obamacare...if they were told that they were the same thing. The problem is that the demagogues are out there repeating their big lies over and over and over and over while the rest of us.....are either oblivious to the idea that repetition works, or just aren't very interested in winning at all.

 

I'm putting my hopes in Scotland, and NI to a lesser extent. If the Scots can leave the UK and either stay in the EU or get fast track membership, I will move to Scotland. If NI gets to keep open borders and I can wangle some sort of EU-ish citizenship via my Irish descended partner, well, that may be enough but my family has certain medical concerns that would not easily be addressed in Northern Ireland (moving to the Republic itself would be a death sentence).

There's also the subscription-based citizenship model being floated about, the idea being that UK individuals could retain their EU passport, civil rights, voting rights(?) and legal protection for an annual fee... As long as it's in the low three figure range it would be worthwhile for me, but it would suck for those who can't afford it. It's doubtful that this will happen for UK residents, but there's a glimmer of hope.

 

I'm really trying not to be angry about this.

The gnashing of my teeth has not yet caused breakages but I don't think it's far away.

This so far feels so so so much worse than I ever imagined and I've now moved into economic dreamland in the hope that our inept government is able to pull some sort of rabbit out of the hat.


I have absolutely ZERO faith that this will happen and I currently believe that the futures in place for my daughters are now compromised beyond anything I have ever imagined.


I'm always happy to be proven wrong, I like my preconceptions to be challenged and I love it when my pessimism is defeated but this just feels like a step too far.

 

Calm down, a deal will be done. The message from Merkel is that, without freedom of movement, 'one has to talk about limits' of single market access. The question then becomes the extent of these limits, which will depend in part on the extent to which May controls borders. May has to appease the Peterborough Posse and the Stoke on Trent Squad while Europe has to put up a good show of making life difficult for us to make the prospect of leaving the EU look less appealing to other nation states in the union.

I keep saying this but for a long while yet it will all be a bloody big pantomime. That doesn't mean that sensible **** isn't going on behind the punch and judy show put on for the benefit of idiots who need to feel like they're being heard.

We'll still get something very close to full access to the single market (probably paid for with some kind of annual charge) and we'll still keep something very close to freedom of movement (with probably some kind of unskilled migration quota).

On a bit of a tangent (reading tweets from an MEP about the situation) it annoys me a bit when people talk about the 52% & 48% of those who voted without ever considering that 17% of those eligible to vote abstained, myself among them.

 

Oh I know a deal of some nature will be done and that my pessimism is unfounded.

I don't think it will be the all singing and dancing deal that May et al will try to spin to us, but it will be appropriate for us as a nation I'm sure.


It's just so damn frustrating that those of us who voted remain (48% of those who voted) mean absolutely nothing to those making the decisions. I understand that I lost and therefore my voice means very little but (ignoring the racists) they likes of Harmon (******** though he is) never indicated that leaving the single market was an option but the outcome appears to be May saying "F You" to everyone, "Lets all start again".


Thankfully I have just started a new job working for a debt collection company. I envisage boom times ahead!


Oh and to pick up on the 17% who didn't vote..... You didn't vote, we have no Idea what the hell you want! (bit of a generalisation as I know some of you just weren't convinced by either argument (which I believe covered your good self))

 

You probably don't want to know how you're considered. Brexiters consider you useful idiots. Remainers are less flattering.

You cannot complain about the outcome when you abstained, you mucking foron.

 

If it had been a straight question of 'leave the EU and adopt the Norwegian model' I'd have voted leave in a heartbeat. The European Parliament is a giant cluster**** and I'm pretty uncomfortable about the Commission. While a fan of Merkel in many respects, I'm also not sold on European expansionism. As for the common agricultural policy, what an absolute heap of **** that I would be very happy to leave behind. On the other hand, I would hate to lose freedom of movement, single market and customs union access.

I'm not complaining about the outcome. I'm irritated at the notion that the nation is divided neatly into 52% racist nutjobs and 48% idiots completely sold on the whole EU package.

As for the insult, I warmly invite you to deliver it in person, Mekon boy.

 

I'm glad the worlds of politics and diplomacy exist outside the influence of people like you V2.

 

That's just it.

My worry lies purely within the unknown. The referendum was a farce with no real true decision to make and it was purely set up to see just how many racists (pretty much) we have in the UK




I say pretty much as I know a handful of people who voted leave but actually (as far as I can tell) aren't racist.


The outcome is not what I wanted, purely because I don't want the instability (in a lot of senses for a purely selfish point of view) but also because uncertainty unnerves me. Living in Manchester where immigration is "just the WORST" according to some morons I know, I've never noticed it as being a problem. Where I work (new And old job) never had an issue with migrants (the Indian lady we employed had her visa etc... as I had to check it and was actually one of my best team members and yes she did stop an English person for getting a job but to be honest he was effing useless and I wouldn't have employed him to empty my bin.


At the moment the current position in the Uk has me ever so slightly on edge. Purely because of how it could impact upon me.

I have started a new job and have another 4 months to go before I pass my probation and although things are going well, I know that if finances tighten up I'm easy to get rid of any time prior to May. This ignores the fact that my Parent company is based in Sweden.

I have a holiday to pay for by the end of Feb 17. I have to find £2k to finish paying it and my delightful tax office have messed up Again and are taking too much tax AND student loan payments which I don't have to pay anymore!

And to top it all off the dollar is looking ***** against the pound which means that diving on this years holiday will 50% more expensive at a minimum and that's before the cost of of daughter (new diver) is taken into account.

All told, some stability would have saved me a hell of a lot of grey hairs and a fair lump of diving cash.






I blame Boris and that Dick Farage.

 

There's a reason why referenda most often, in our system of government, succeed when the matter is a clear cut resolution. The 65% who voted for entering the EU in the 1970s did so with a greater sense of clarity for what this meant than those who voted "leave" did. Otherwise we both have a shared history of more failure than success when it comes to voting a referendum through.

The leave referendum essentially established whether the UK would begin to, simultaneously, explore what leaving meant whilst formally telegraphing an intent to leave. Hence the nature of the results. Had, by contrast, a defined model for what "leave" meant been clear, the result emphatically would not have been 52% leave, 48% remain.

V2's attack on Pete is not only insipid and superficial, it's historically vapid and procedurally inept. Like assaulting someone with a lukewarm sponge.

 

Fight me in real life bro? Serious? Are you having a stroke?

Voting for an inherently racist policy on inherently racist grounds is a racist act. Evidently staying in would have had a better effect on our economy, so doesn't seem idiotic.

You are complaining about the outcome, have complained about the outcome, and even complain that cowardly abstainers aren't being given enough attention in the aftermath. You precious flower.