So the UK is finished says Theresa Mayhem

[Barrie Stevens]

4 hours ago, Freggyragh said:

I’m not a big fan of the EU, but much less of a fan of China or Russia. The world has to pull together to deal with the awful global challenges ahead. Of the democracies the U.K. could partner with; the US is too big and bellicose, India and South Africa are too politically unreliable and economically underdeveloped and Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand too far away - but if the U.K. had any sense, once it’s back in the EU it might want to explore the possibilities of extending EU membership, or something like it, to those countries too. 

I fail to see how EU membership can be extended so far away from Europe...

Secondly, we, the UK did have special/preferential arrangements with far away countries before we joined the Common Market...

Our docks and warehouses and shops by extension were stuffed full of USA/Canadian cereal crops, all the produce, fruit, cereals, minerals and meat from Australia and New Zealand, likewise cheese and wool. Fruit, sugar, maize and minerals from South Africa,  ditto from Rhodesia/Zimbabawe including beef, tobacco, maize and sugar plus chromium and manganese, South African steel, American steel, American coal, Canadian aluminium and timber, Malayan/Malaysian rubber and tin, Indian and Ceylon tea, Argentine meat, Caribbean sugar and bananas, rum. West African cocoa West African palm oil (For soap in those days), Nigerian oil, Kenyan tea and coffee. So much more to list of what was traded.

Ireland would negotiate once every year or so and the UK would guarantee to buy most of the Irish farm produce which was then a lifeline to Eire..I recall the Irish trademark was "Purity" brand.

We gave all that up in return for the Common Market in broad terms.

As to going back into the EU I think that horse will not run. I doubt the UK will "enjoy" what it once had by way of concessions. They have had enough of us and we of them...Too late.

Even though I voted Remain as the lesser of two evils I feel that the only settlement is to comply with the Referendum...Come out and suffer whatever fate has in store...People seem to want a quick fix now and as nothing else seems possible get on with it.

Already I see some are saying that the closest comparison for the effect of a no-deal Brexit on the UK is the experience of New Zealand when we basically dropped them in it by no longer taking their farm produce which caused that country great pain until over the years they adjusted...They have not forgotten it yet!

Just have to come out now and if people suffer pain and lose jobs so be it. 

There was a time on both world wars when this country really was on the edge of failing/starvation...But people adjusted. Farming adjusted and modernised.

It would be like starting again and we all might have to forgo a lot of that which we take for granted...But that is what you voted for...

Actually I am starting to look forward to the great changes it will produce. You know, necessity being the mother of invention.....Wouldn't mind going back to work and myself and am already swinging a plan into action..

 

 

 

[dilligaf]

50 minutes ago, Barrie Stevens said:

I fail to see how EU membership can be extended so far away from Europe...

Secondly, we, the UK did have special/preferential arrangements with far away countries before we joined the Common Market...

Our docks and warehouses and shops by extension were stuffed full of USA/Canadian cereal crops, all the produce, fruit, cereals, minerals and meat from Australia and New Zealand, likewise cheese and wool. Fruit, sugar, maize and minerals from South Africa,  ditto from Rhodesia/Zimbabawe including beef, tobacco, maize and sugar plus chromium and manganese, South African steel, American steel, American coal, Canadian aluminium and timber, Malayan/Malaysian rubber and tin, Indian and Ceylon tea, Argentine meat, Caribbean sugar and bananas, rum. West African cocoa West African palm oil (For soap in those days), Nigerian oil, Kenyan tea and coffee. So much more to list of what was traded.

Ireland would negotiate once every year or so and the UK would guarantee to buy most of the Irish farm produce which was then a lifeline to Eire..I recall the Irish trademark was "Purity" brand.

We gave all that up in return for the Common Market in broad terms.

As to going back into the EU I think that horse will not run. I doubt the UK will "enjoy" what it once had by way of concessions. They have had enough of us and we of them...Too late.

Even though I voted Remain as the lesser of two evils I feel that the only settlement is to comply with the Referendum...Come out and suffer whatever fate has in store...People seem to want a quick fix now and as nothing else seems possible get on with it.

Already I see some are saying that the closest comparison for the effect of a no-deal Brexit on the UK is the experience of New Zealand when we basically dropped them in it by no longer taking their farm produce which caused that country great pain until over the years they adjusted...They have not forgotten it yet!

Just have to come out now and if people suffer pain and lose jobs so be it. 

There was a time on both world wars when this country really was on the edge of failing/starvation...But people adjusted. Farming adjusted and modernised.

It would be like starting again and we all might have to forgo a lot of that which we take for granted...But that is what you voted for...

Actually I am starting to look forward to the great changes it will produce. You know, necessity being the mother of invention.....Wouldn't mind going back to work and myself and am already swinging a plan into action..

 

 

 

Jethro Tull did a good song about "Living in the Past"

[Barrie Stevens]

Dilligaf I like to think has misunderstood me?

[Freggyragh]

If you want Brexit from the EU, you need the deal offered or Great Britain needs a Brexit from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Did you know Great Britain pays more to Northern Ireland than it does to the EU? - £180,793,269 a week, no rebate, no regional grants. Stick that on a bus. 

 

[Barrie Stevens]

5 minutes ago, Barrie Stevens said:

Dilligaf I like to think has misunderstood me?

Or me him to be fair...

[Barrie Stevens]

2 minutes ago, Freggyragh said:

If you want Brexit from the EU, you need the deal offered or Great Britain needs a Brexit from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Did you know Great Britain pays more to Northern Ireland than it does to the EU? - £180,793,269 a week, no rebate, no regional grants. Stick that on a bus. 

 

I would prefer a translation but I assume the slant is towards N Ireland leaving UK/GB and joining with ROI thus staying in the EU??? Well that's one off then!..It is looking more and more like the USA civil war (in principle)…"The Union for ever!" or "Hurrah! Hurrah for Dixie!"...I voted Remain to help preserve our union amongst other thoughts but now I can see coming a crash out no deal by default...As regards tweeking with the Backstop...Looks like May is looking for a Comfort Letter ie The Backstop is there but we won't use it...Comfort Letters and Back Letters have no force in law as they are a moral stance and only worth something if the other side can be trusted...ie a good "signature".. Can't see that so May is playing for time..Maybe to have a nice Xmas?

[Freggyragh]

It’s a fox, goose, corn conundrum. 

NI doesn’t want to leave the UK of GB & NI, or the EU. (Except for the DUP, who say they do want to leave the EU, but absolutely do not want to leave the UK of GB & NI.) 

GB wants to leave the EU but it can’t without breaking up with NI because it promised everyone that NI would never again have a hard border with the EU. 

The EU are ok with the UK of GB & NI leaving, but they too promised there would never be a hard border with NI. They are serious about their promises. 

Hard brexiters say there won’t be a border if no one wants one, knowing full well that as soon as tons upon tons of chlorinated chicken and hormone beef shows up in the UK, laws change, and immigrants decide to make their way into the U.K. by train rather than inflatable boat and the violence flares up again there will be a hard border. 

The EU says promises are promises. 

[Freggyragh]

David Cameron’s latest tweet is getting some cracking comments:

 

[La Colombe]

Brutal. 

[Freggyragh]

“I’m not arguing there are no decent people in the Tory Party, but they’re like bits of sweet corn in a turd: technically they’ve kept their integrity, but they’re embedded in shit.” Iain Banks. 

Here’s a little bit of sweet corn:

 

 

 

 

 

[Barrie Stevens]

Anyone got a Brexit coin....Could be worth a bit like Edward VIII penny.....

[woolley]

15 hours ago, Barrie Stevens said:

I fail to see how EU membership can be extended so far away from Europe...

 

I don't suppose that it could, but maybe a post-EU, looser arrangement covering trade, mutual co-operation and common interest between sovereign countries embracing the rule of law could be advantageous.

[woolley]

14 hours ago, Freggyragh said:

If you want Brexit from the EU, you need the deal offered or Great Britain needs a Brexit from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Did you know Great Britain pays more to Northern Ireland than it does to the EU? - £180,793,269 a week, no rebate, no regional grants. Stick that on a bus. 

 

I take the point about the dough, although I cannot confirm the amount. A very good reason why there won't be a united Ireland anytime soon. At the same time though, while there might be no rebate etc, etc, there is also no supranational court, parliament or flag in this union.

[John Wright]

35 minutes ago, woolley said:

I take the point about the dough, although I cannot confirm the amount. A very good reason why there won't be a united Ireland anytime soon. At the same time though, while there might be no rebate etc, etc, there is also no supranational court, parliament or flag in this union.

What do you think the Union Flag, Westminster and the Supreme Court are, Woolley? They’re our very own supranational institutions and symbols.

[woolley]

14 hours ago, Barrie Stevens said:

 ..As regards tweeking with the Backstop...Looks like May is looking for a Comfort Letter ie The Backstop is there but we won't use it...Comfort Letters and Back Letters have no force in law as they are a moral stance and only worth something if the other side can be trusted...ie a good "signature".. Can't see that so May is playing for time..Maybe to have a nice Xmas?

It's a total red herring, Bazza and the whole pantomime playing out now is a charade. The HoC voted for Article 50 for good form rather than in good faith to appear to be honouring the referendum. They inserted the amendment for a meaningful vote knowing full well that WHATEVER deal came back they would throttle it. Despite the vast majority of them being elected on a Brexit supporting manifesto and paying lip service to it, there is an inbuilt majority among MPs who want to remain in the EU. As soon as the meaningful vote was conceded you could not get past that.

This business about the backstop is an irrelevant storm in a teacup. We ALREADY guarantee the open border in perpetuity as part of the GFA, and why would the EU want to keep the UK in the backstop permanently anyway affording, as it does, free access to the single market for UK businesses for no financial contribution whatsoever? It's just a convenient hook on which to hang MP's objections. If it wasn't the backstop it would be something else. Watching the debates it is obvious that many of them are extremely ill-informed and I wonder how many of them have actually read the text of the Withdrawal Agreement. Some of the questions asked suggest too many of them have not. The question I have asked myself in recent days is whether May is deluded or is she actually part of the theatricals.

Edited December 11, 2018 by woolley